For New York, it’s an intimate-but-not-in-an-unpleasant-way
venue. Bar, a few tables, a stage, good but not
overly-imposing-or-meaning-to-impress atmosphere. The amps weren’t too loud. I
was as close as possible – close – and the sound was right, and I could hear
all the words.
After a day shuttling between medicine, public health, and
poetry contexts, with many, many subways and miles of walking
in-between, I re-learned what it means to be an artist.
Rachael Sage.
If I have a favorite musician – a singular one, one who is
alive and performing and now, and who is not so very well-known or
widely-played to be obvious – it’s her.
And it’s been her for the past decade – little more than. A
friend gave me Smashing the Serene in
the fall of 2001. It’s technically Rachael’s second CD, but it was my first. As I told her tonight (crazy, idolizing fan like I’m the
crazy, idolizing fan with some of my poets): “I realized that I’ve had a
relationship with your music for over a decade, now. That’s longer than with
most of the people I know.”
It’s true. That’s formative
years (aren’t they all?) Music, good music, can be both background and foreground. One of the four options (she gave) for her last/encore song
was the first Rachael Sage song I ever heard. (“Sistersong,” Smashing the Serene). I know the words
to that one and to many others. And the ones she sang that I’ve heard – but not
memorized – brought the same knowing smile of familiarity, triggering memory
and attachment.
That’s what it means to be an artist.
That’s what you want it to mean, to be an artist… to mean
something. To get to be part of someone else’s story, in a way, to have given
and shared that gift.